Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella has signed a decree loosening a decades-old restriction on carrying firearms in public for self-defense, according to reporting from Breitbart News.
The measure undoes rules that, as the BBC described them, barred “even those in possession of a permit to carry guns” from being armed in public without first obtaining “additional authorization.” That framework had been in place since December 2015, when then-President Juan Manuel Santos imposed the public-carry restriction.
A campaign promise cashed in
De la Espriella ran for the presidency on a law-and-order platform, pledging to take a hard line on crime. Central to that pitch was the argument that law-abiding citizens should be able to arm themselves for self-defense — a position he returned to repeatedly during the campaign and again as he signed the decree.
He framed the policy as a matter of basic fairness, saying it is “not right that criminals are armed to the teeth while decent people can’t defend themselves.”
On September 8, 2026, the president took to X to restate the rationale, writing, “For years, citizens who obey the law were restricted while criminals continued arming themselves to the teeth illegally. That has to change.”
In signing the decree, de la Espriella also emphasized that law enforcement would keep pressing its campaign to track down and disarm criminals — signaling that the relaxation of civilian restrictions is not meant to soften the government’s posture toward armed criminal groups.
The backdrop
Colombia’s experience with civilian gun ownership sits inside a long-running debate over how to balance public safety with the right of self-defense, in a country where illegal armed actors have historically been a persistent security concern. The 2015 restriction under Santos represented one attempt at that balance; de la Espriella’s decree represents a decisive shift in the other direction.
The practical question now is how quickly the change takes effect for Colombians who hold permits but were previously required to clear an extra authorization hurdle before carrying in public.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2026/09/12/colombian-president-abelardo-de-la-espriella-loosens-restrictions-on-being-armed-for-self-defense/